Historical Harn Homestead

Historical Harn HOmestead

1 0/5/2005-1 0/19/2005

General Information

Investigators: Christy, Roger, Jimmy, Donna, Dana, Marcia and Kevin

Equipment used: DVR, (5) IR video cameras, personal audio recorders, digital cameras and various EMF meters

Below is our group's movie documentary of our investigation at this location.

Historical/Factual/Relevant Info:

1882, William Harn married Alice Moores, who was also from Ohio. Alice was an artist and they lived in Mansfield, Ohio for a short time before William went to work for “The Mansfield Herald” newspaper. This newspaper was a very strong Republican belief publication and this is where William began his participation in politics. In 1890, he was appointed “Special Agent to Oklahoma” for the General Land Office which was a office through the Department of the Interior. His job was to conduct investigations of disputed land claims arising from the 1889 “Land Rush”. After 1889, he retired from this post to pursue his Law interests. Mr. Harn purchased this 160 acre property for $425 dollars from James Carter of Illinois who staked a claim on it in during the first land run of 1889. Mr. Carter built a small one room house that was later incorporated into this house as the kitchen area. Mrs. Harn did not enjoy living in Oklahoma and probably one of the reasons is because before moving here, the Harn’s only child, a son, died in infancy in 1881 and was buried in Ohio. William and Alice then became foster parents to Dudley Moores Wilson and his sister Florence Ogden Wilson who were the

children of Alice’s sister. Dudley left home not long after they moved in with the Harns, but Florence stayed and lived in the house until her death in the 1960’s. In 1903, after 13 years of living in Oklahoma, Mrs. Harn decided to return to Ohio.

Harn Homestead

In order to get Mrs. Harn to remain here, Mr. Harn purchased this $2000 dollar Queen Anne Styled Eagen Cottage from the National Builders supplement catalog, a sears and Roebuck company. The kill house arrived by railroad from Chicago and was built within 6 weeks. Mr. and Mrs. Harn moved in on

April 18th 1904. In 1911, Mr. Harn donated 40 acres of this land to the state of Oklahoma for the Capital building project. Another 40 acres were donated by a Mr. John J. Colbertson Sr. however only 10 acres from both men were used for the capital building. The Harn Homestead offers tours and charges a nominal fee for upkeep of the site. They also provide a wonderful setting for private parties and group events. Along with this they offer educational tours for children with some hands on teaching that makes the learning fun and enjoyable for children of all ages. The Harn home is on the national historical buildings registry.

Stony Point School ***Built in 1897***

Education was a primary concern of the New Oklahoman's and within 6 weeks of the land run, Oklahoma boasted a school house, churches, social centers & polling places. Stony Point School was originally built near present day Rose Hill township. This 3 window, "one room" school house closed its door to the last classes of all 8 children on July 1, 1947. The actual chalkboard which was made of mud, plaster and horse hair can still be seen in the school house today. The Stony Point School was relocated to the Harn Homestead in 1987 and was restored in memory of Ava Howell Ingle by her family.

The Sheppard House

George T. Sheppard built this house in 1889 before bringing his family from Kansas in 1890 to their new home in Oklahoma territory. This 4 room, 25X15 house had no plumbing or electricity, but it was a fine home compared to most settlers of that time. The Sheppard's had 8 children when they moved into the house, the youngest was 14 and the oldest 24. One son married and moved to Perry, Oklahoma and shortly afterwards the Sheppards built a much larger house in 1904. All of the other children, none of whomever married, moved into the house with their parents and lived there until both parents passed away. The house is said to have been the first 2-story home in Oklahoma territory and the first house to have an indoor staircase. Some of the

furnishings inside the house belonged to the Sheppards & our representative styles of the 19th century. The Sheppard house was originally located on what is now Sheppard Mall. It was relocated to the Oklahoma City Zoo where it remained on displayed for many years for the zoo's visitors. It was then relocated to the Harn Homestead to help preserve its historical value.

Investigation Report

Jimmy started taking pictures of the place and the pictures started showing red. Christy had previously used the camera a few days prior and no settings had been changed. She checked the settings and they were all normal. She then began taking pictures and after taking only a few, her memory card showed full, but there had only been a total of 15 pictures taken. Christy went to go find Kevin to tell him about the camera. She thought Kevin and Dana were in the house so she went inside to look for them. She heard audible voices coming from upstairs so she went upstairs and called out to Kevin, but got no reply. One of the stationary recorders caught this incident. You can actually hear a man's voice upstairs saying what sounds like, "bored, bored" or "more, more."

Christy heard voices downstairs so she went downstairs to check it out. She thought that maybe the team was downstairs but when she arrived, she wasn't able to find any of the team. One of the other downstairs stationary recorders caught this incident and at the beginning part of the clip, you can hear what sounds like a woman's voice talking and then you hear Christy come in and say, "Hello, is anyone in the house?"

After this happened, Christy went outside to see exactly where everyone in the group was and they were all outside. She asked Kevin and Dana if they were just in the house and they said they had been earlier, but not in the last few minutes.

One of the other things that I experienced while at this location was when I was coming in from the back of the house. No one was in the house but me as I had just talked to them all outside. I decided this would be a good time to do a little exploring and recording on my own. I took my audio recorder and my gauss meter and started to go into the inner part of the house by myself. There is a back door from the porch and then the inner door that leads to the original part of the house. I went to go through the inner door when the back door swung open on me. Looking at it from a skeptical point of view, I thought, "Okay, I didn't shut the door very well and the wind blew it open since it was a bit windy that night as we had a storm moving in," so I went to the back door and made sure that I shut it tight. I then picked back up my gauss meter and audio recorder and proceeded to go through the inner house door again, but when I got to nearly the exact same location, the back door swung open on me AGAIN! I tried to explain it away, looking at reasons of why, but couldn't find one. I hadn't actually opened the inner door as both times I was approximately 4 feet away from the door when the back door came open, so there is no way I could create a wind tunnel by opening up the inner door because I never opened it. Plus on top of this, I knew I had securely shut the door all the way just a few moments previous. The back door was also enclosed in by a screened in porch as well so it was a bit protected from the wind as well.

Another interesting thing about this back area was an experience we had and a photo we captured. We were getting ready to leave and Kevin and Randy from the Harn ended up being in the back room by themselves talking. Kevin's camera started going off on its own and immediately got Kevin's attention. When he developed the 35mm film, he discovered what appeared to be a silhouette of a figure. We have analyzed this photo and have tried to recreate it, but haven't been able to. Again, the only person in the room with Kevin at the time was Randy, but he was not in the frame of the camera's

lens when the picture was taken AND no one just as a side note, NO ONE there that night was wearing solid black.

It was during the sweeps of the living room area that we heard knocking coming from the living room area. We heard 2 distinct knocks coming from a few feet in front of me, but it wasn't any of us. We also tried to recreate the knocking from the positions that we were standing, but could not recreate it from the correct direction. We have this incident on both video and audio. Here is the audio clip which recorded the knocking... "Knocking audio clip"

Jim and Dana were doing a sit down by themselves in the home and started asking questions and actually had a cool meter activation on the K-11 meter.

Unfortunately the camcorder was not recording in the area where they moved the meter and had the activation.

At approximately 7:58pm Jimmy sensed a presence in the back room, upstairs, of the Harn House. Moments later Kevin was made aware of the presence who then entered the room. Kevin Saw a white energy apparition in the room near the attic door. After making the rest of the team aware of the incident the apparition disappeared and no data was collected.

Psychic Investigator’s Comments

There were 4 spirits that I encountered while visiting the Harn Homestead, but not all were inside the Harn Homestead house. While we were in the Stony Point School house, I encountered the spirit of a little boy about age 6-7, named William Thomas. He also called himself Billy for short. He did not state if he went to school there or not, and I did not get the feeling that he did, but I do feel like he plays in the

school and throughout the Harn Homestead grounds.

Within the Sheppard House, I also felt the presence of a very stern woman (relation to the Sheppard’s, I am unsure) but she did seem to give off the impression that we were intruding into the home and she did not want us there. When the group was together she seemed to “hide” but then afterwards when Jimmy and I were up their by ourselves, she seemed to become more domineering. It wasn’t until Jimmy & I were coming down stairs and getting ready to exit out the living room area when I saw a silhouette of a person standing by the organ in the living room. When I went to look closer, the figure was gone. I could not make out the sex of the figure, but I do know that it gave me a bit of a spook to see them so close like that, and especially when I didn’t expect it!

The Harn Home….this was the icing on the cake and was the most interesting!! After spending quite a bit of time in this beautiful place, I felt like Mr. & Mrs. Harn’s niece, Florence still remained in the home looking after it, along with a young female that she takes care of & had encountered along her spiritual journey. Florence seemed aware of her surroundings and felt like she was still "at home" and where she needed to be.

evidence collected

There were 9 EVPs that was recorded during this investigation and 1 sound clips.

There was 1 photos and no video clips.